Chapter 92 – No Safe Place in Hell (2)

Roar!

Giant black tentacles split the sky.

Boom! Boom!

The tentacles frantically beat against the newly created safe zone boundary.

The tentacles’ movement was completely different from the attack earlier.

While then it planned to take time destroying the safe zone, this time it didn’t care about its tentacles burning.

The black tentacles kept beating the barrier while engulfed in holy power flames.

Naturally, the octopus monster was in pain.

Roar!

Though the octopus monster screamed enough to shake the world, it didn’t stop swinging its tentacles.

Boom! Boom!

Under the octopus monster’s reckless attacks, the safe zone looked about to collapse immediately.

“No time.”

I took out armor substitutes from my pouch.

Protective clothing and various protective gear.

All were defensive equipment from this world.

With the armor ruined, I couldn’t fight bare.

Though items mana didn’t flow well through, they would block impacts.

After putting on the protective clothing and gear, Yerim looked at me with an impressed face.

“Wow, you look like a SWAT team member from movies.”

US police special forces huh.

Looking like this, that was natural. But unfortunately I held a sword not a gun.

The one holding guns was the elf woman.

She had a large anti-materiel rifle slung on her shoulder.

It was clearly the gun used by the undead that shot at us.

I wondered why retrieving what the aircraft dropped took longer than expected, seems she was late getting that gun.

After putting on protective gear, Zahina handed me a cylinder.

“It’s what the aircraft dropped.”

A long metal cylinder.

A sturdy small cylinder that seemed like it would contain documents.

Though curious what was inside, now wasn’t the time to look.

Crack. Crack.

The cracks in the air grew larger.

I pushed the cylinder into my pouch.

“Ah! The holy artifact!”

At the same time Yerim’s scream was heard.

White smoke was rising from the wooden cross emitting holy power that she held.

“The holy artifact is breaking!”

With the contractor changed, location moved, and safe zone continuously attacked, the holy artifact seemed unable to endure.

“It feels like it will break right away if moved more. Though it would break if the barrier breaks too.”

It meant the holy artifact was at its limit.

I said to the tearful Yerim.

“Though not sure if it will work, I’ll try blocking or luring it again.”

Yerim bowed her head to me holding the smoking wooden cross.

“Please, I beg you!”

Though Yerim’s raised face was full of expectation, unfortunately I couldn’t meet that expectation.

“However, if I can’t block it and the safe zone collapses, or if the holy artifact breaks, we’re leaving here. Taking only our party members.”

“What?”

Yerim seemed shocked at my following words.

Ignoring Yerim looking at me with a half-dazed face, I spoke to Hoffman and Zahina.

“If I give a signal, or if it seems difficult on your own, retreat. Regrouping point is the hideout we saw before.”

“Understood.”

“…”

Though Hoffman nodded at my words, Zahina just stared at me with her usual expressionless face.

At times like this I didn’t know what she was thinking, but since she did well what she was told, I trusted the two and turned around.

This time I didn’t move with Zahina.

Not luring but having to fight the octopus monster somehow, even with Zahina having an anti-materiel rifle she wouldn’t be helpful.

I looked up at the octopus monster breaking the safe zone barrier.

“Well then, round 2.”

Actually, since I just lured it before getting hit by tentacles and knocked away, strictly speaking this might be the first proper confrontation.

The situation wasn’t good.

Originally, my party’s goal was surviving until the gate opened.

Coming to this Daejeon was partly due to my personal greed.

However, fortunately there was a safe zone perfectly suited for the gate to open here in Daejeon.

That’s why we stayed here.

That safe zone was about to collapse now.

Though we’d overcome various crises and held out this far using various methods, honestly I had no way this time.

If I could have my way, I’d like to just run away with party members, but thanks to the message magic that flew from that world I couldn’t do that either.

To avoid being cursed at by nobles and mages later, I had to at least put on an act until the end.

“After gathering gold, my sword and armor get destroyed. After recruiting a useful cleric, baggage gets attached.”

Though I thought I was strong against bad luck, seems I was just unlucky.

I sighed and launched myself toward the octopus monster.

Wearing protective clothing instead of armor, holding a longsword instead of greatsword, I charged at the octopus monster.

The cracked barrier rapidly approached, and swaying tentacles filled the sky.

The safe zone’s northern boundary spread past the northern road into the middle of the residential area.

I crossed the road in one step, jumped across building rooftops, and arrived in front of the safe zone boundary.

When I stood before the octopus monster holding my sword, the tentacles beating the safe zone boundary flinched, and the octopus monster’s eyes looked at me.

Rumble.

However, unfortunately the flinched tentacles beat the wall again, and the octopus monster’s burning eyes ignored me.

“Must be due to the lich’s magic?”

The lich’s final magic seemed quite strong.

Well, being a lich that led the Demon King’s army, the magic it poured out while dying couldn’t have been ordinary.

“Not easy as expected.”

With this the plan to lure again was scrapped.

However, not being able to lure didn’t mean complete failure.

There was a way to use it ignoring me too.

I launched my body and left the safe zone.

Passing through the cracked holy power wall, surrounding death energy clung to my body.

Death energy pouring from the octopus monster’s body.

Death energy flowing from tentacles burning in holy power.

Come to think of it, this death energy was the octopus monster’s blood.

“But it’s blood that kills people.”

I broke through the thick death energy on the ground and approached the octopus monster.

Thanks to the octopus monster deliberately avoiding me, there was no interference until approaching its body.

No undead were visible around the octopus monster either.

Before there were no undead around the octopus monster because the lich controlled them, but now undead were instinctively avoiding the octopus monster.

I could clearly see undead gathered at the safe zone boundary distant from the octopus monster.

Undead freed from the lich’s control were instinctively gathering here and there.

When the safe zone collapsed, those undead would surely all pour into the school.

The Demon King’s army under the lich’s control was naturally scary, but thousands of uncontrolled undead weren’t easy opponents either.

Though my party and I might be fine, all humans in the safe zone would die.

Anyway, thanks to undead instinctively avoiding it, I could easily approach the octopus monster.

Before my eyes were legs without suction cups attached to the octopus body.

A bit higher giant octopus eyes were visible, and behind them a giant head was visible.

Except for no suction cups on the legs, it really resembled an octopus.

“I’ll make you regret ignoring me.”

I launched my body onto the giant leg attached to its body.

The octopus legs, no tentacles raised in the air were moving with tremendous power and speed now.

However, those tentacles were attached to the octopus monster’s body.

No matter how violently they moved, the parts attached to the body couldn’t move much.

And I could easily stand on such places.

The sticky black tentacles flowing with death energy. Standing on them they were larger than giant trees.

A size that would take hours to cut even with a saw.

“Still, nothing that can’t be cut.”

Though it would have been easier to cut with a greatsword, it wasn’t impossible with a longsword.

I drove my sword into the tentacle.

Thunk.

Though death energy pushed back my sword, my advantage was a sword filled with mana.

A sword that broke even the lich’s head couldn’t fail to pierce such tentacles.

The sword plunged deep until only the handle remained.

The pierced tentacle twitched and stopped moving.

Though it ignored me, seems it couldn’t ignore being stabbed by the sword.

I started running while keeping the sword embedded.

A long crack was made along the tentacle.

Though an extremely thin crack compared to the tentacle, that crack continued unbroken to the end.

After crossing the giant tentacle like that, I jumped down below the tentacle while keeping the sword embedded in it.

Rip!

While I fell down, my sword weighted by my body kept cutting the tentacle.

The thin crack continued all the way to the ground.

Roar!

When I landed on the ground, screaming was heard from above.

It was the octopus monster’s scream.

The crack I made with my sword was just an extremely thin crack compared to the giant tentacle.

But that crack had scored over half the tentacle, so it wasn’t a simple wound.

Whoosh!

Black smoke rose from the crack I made.

Death energy. Death mana flowing inside the octopus monster’s body.

The death energy gushed out like blood from the crack I made. It shot skyward like blood spurting from a wrist vein.

The death energy was so dense even ordinary people could see it.

The tentacle swayed with the gushing death energy.

If it was fine even with this, I planned to crawl into the cut flesh and keep cutting inside, but that seemed unnecessary.

As the tentacle flailed, more death energy gushed out.

Crack.

And finally the tentacle broke.

The tentacle crumbled while spewing death energy.

The octopus monster’s scream pierced my eardrums, and tentacles flew toward me.

Giant black pillars fell toward me where the cut tentacle had been.

“Damn, good that it reacted but…”

Though I succeeded in making it turn its attention to me, my life was immediately endangered.

Having experienced it once before, I knew well it was impossible to block those tentacles.

I desperately launched my body.

I shot toward the octopus monster’s head staying close to its body.

I thought the tentacles would hesitate for fear of hitting its own body, but it didn’t stop.

Boom! Boom!

The ground burst and the monster’s body burst.

Amid everything bursting, I launched my body frantically.

And screams were heard.

Different screams from the monster’s scream. People’s screams.

Though I blocked the octopus tentacles, it was too late.

Faster than I thought, the safe zone had collapsed.